Billiard Brats
by Kaitsurinu
Summary: [1x2 3x4] [AU, Experimental] Duo Maxwell has all the stuff of a rock star--a guitar, an affection for the bottle, and a competitive spirit bar none, which just might be his downfall when he commits himself to rubbing Heero Yuy's face into the dirt.
1. Démettant

**Author's Notes**

**To address a few things first**, I don't intend to let this story overwhelm me like others have--this is only a teaser so far. I'm developing the plot line and half-way through the second chapter, so for those of you who want to see it play out, don't worry. At least by the end of the summer I'll have a lot less writing to finish up, and I'll probably be free to work on it. Don't worry. _My Shinigami, My Hamburger_ was just a teaser for the longest time and I still got around to it, didn't I? Merry up. Another thing, for those of you who read that it was going to be a musical rivarly between Duo's band and the rich kids and then had a horrific image of poor Heero in a flesh-colored Britney affair, don't worry. I don't intend for the story to be so much actual musical battling, it's kind of a backdrop to fuel a rivalry. No sappy songfic shit, so don't fret, Pia Bartolini. This is another product of my hunger to speak through my poor little medium slash muse, Duo Maxwell, and luckily for him, he's not going to get shot. Run over? Perhaps. Trounced? I'm squeezing it into my schedule. Plauged with angst? Why wouldn't he be? It's much different than The .45 Colt War, which was my first batter-session with our favorite American. Basically that came from wanting to break down some Heero stereotypes, and poke fun at a few others. I like to call these my experimental fics, or just really just my fetish fics. I like guns, violence, blood and Heero, and I like Duo, so that's what goes in. A match made in Deathscythe Hell. Basically, that's how The .45 Colt War got into the womb. This one involves French, pooltables, stratocastors, tuxedos, long polished sticks, a loveably crotchety Chang Wufei, and one very imperfect Duo. It's not so dark, but there's no telling how it'll go. I indulge a few of my favorite visuals and weave it into a story. Shameless, no? Oh well. Now that I've thoroughly probed my psyche, I think I'll shut up.

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**_[It Takes the Bravest to Become Fools.]_**

**Billiard Brats**

By Kaitsurinu

[[Teaser]]

Chapter 1 – Démettant

Okay, so I have to admit a few things. This man can dance. Alright already, you've caught me again—not only is he dancing, but he's doing it very, very fucking well and making me feel like tailored velvet against him. In this materialized, place of absolute fantasy that comes every night and may be better known simply as my dreams, there's never been something so erotically simple to entice and torment me this way. Endless black all around, a pair of classic black tuxedos between us and little precious space left. Everything is chalkboard for this beautiful mathematician to work his arithmetic sin upon. In my fantasy, he is just there awaiting my arrival, no matter how long he is forced stand in that void while I drift off from the cumbersome waking world. And there is always a waltz playing.

Funny thing, that waltz.

There are some sultry foreign words being exchanged in the air above us, but of course, do I bother to listen to lyrics at a time like this? No, this is a time for the bold and the rude. There need be no indistinct glances, no chivalrous taps on the shoulders and polite words, perhaps even an outdated, "May I have this dance?" Both of us, me and this conjured man, this monstrously unbelievable man that I couldn't have possibly thought of on my own, know exactly what we came here for and we both know the other knows. _Carpe_-_diem_-zealots would gloat green with envy if they had the chance to peer in and see the magnificent show.

Champagne thoughts spill over my rim and I'm intoxicated hopelessly with the way he grabs my hand—taking the lead like the purely beatific gentleman I've fabricated him to be. Chest to chest, the Adonis being gazing down at me from his handsome height, I attempt disarming him with a sleek grin and it goes down in flame when he presents his own smile, just below the tousled chocolate-brown hair hiding his eyes. So interesting—now my dream begins conjuring the horribly shadowy and indistinct face of this Rock Hudson, this Marlon Brando—and the decisive sonata starts.

I have no idea how long we waltz in that black world, alone but somehow swarmed with swingers and a la mode lounge singers crooning to the lovers they left on the moon. Somehow the bubbly keeps flowing into those intangible glasses and fuels the slow romance that is this imagined affair. We waltz, yes, but my feet move as if they were a mind apart from me and equally intent on romancing this man's own feet. I'm more concerned with how tightly I can wrap my arm around the small of his back without letting the chic alcohol get to me and draw him a little too close. And then, there seems to be one more seductive drink and I don't care. He's gazing down at me adoringly with that face that doesn't quite exist yet, but I can see it dreamily, just imagining.

It's like designer Armani wrapped in the suave styling of some upstart New York fashion pioneer—yeah, he's a big boy who's gonna knock you on your nose, honey doll. Gonna whisk you away to the Big Apple like one swank shining diamond.

Oh God, you've been too kind. Endowing me with Lady Luck in this never-ending fantasy of jazzy music, back when America was still in its roaring youth, when men were broad-shouldered, richly tailored men and the women all dreamed of being Marilyn Monroe. Tailoring the way we melt together, ignoring the steps and the beats, the lulling romance of that ole 1-and-2-and-3. Yes, for once, you've been too good to me. I'm too completely suckered in, I can't believe this is real—I'm drowning in that good old-fashioned lover boy.

And when it fades, and the damsels woo the virgins with their black dresses and Smooth-talking City jive and their French names, and the men look for a brown-eyed Susan to sing them songs and watch Carson at night in their urbane suburban homes. That's when the waltz hums in our ears and tells us to just get it done with and kiss. I imagine him smiling that mega-watt smile he has and laughing in a rolling voice like aged wine would spill into a glass. And he does it for me, instantly winning me over and telling me of how I've already been long gone.

His hand is on my shoulder and I'm bowing back while he moves closer and closer, in only a way I've seen on the silver screen amongst murmured script lines of gold. And I can taste it finally. There are a billion stars in the skies that night, and I'm romancing them all and making them ever so jealous, and that envious moon… I've shamed them all. This utopia of a man kisses me ever so wonderfully and I'm lost. Lost and loving it.

He tastes like…

Champagne? Strawberries? Salt-water taffy? Something more seductive?

No, I think mistily as I begin to moan quietly into his mouth, it's something else, something cooler, much smoother against my lips, moist and delicious, but solid and slightly rough… something that tastes an awful lot like… like…

Raisin-bran cereal?

I instinctively whip my head up out of my cereal bowl as I start breathing in my skim milk, the stuff dripping down my face as I sit bolt up in my chair at the table where I had fallen asleep this morning. And when I open my eyes, the dream is gone. The lust bursts into something like pixie dust when I realize that I've been having a wine-wet dream while asleep in my cereal bowl, while being exactly fifteen minutes late for my first hour class. My quixotic man is gone along with his Roaring 20's world of black and white and his old-fashioned amour. I'm beginning to think that I should go into a diabetic coma from all the fluffy thoughts and just stay in that dream forever.

Well, at least my wet dreams are getting more creative, I think as I practically scream and burst out the door, grabbing my bag on the way and knocking over a vase, and kicking on my shoes as I run down the middle of the street towards school.

"Don't worry, I'm sure your delinquency will start turning around soon. I mean, how long can you possibly remain such an unprecedented force of absolute laziness? Bad manners? How much longer can possibly keep up this horrible sense of time, bad attendance, bombing every test that comes your way, and managing to somehow offend every girlfriend you've ever had without even trying?"

Over my copy of Slaughterhouse Five, there's one frown I've saved especially for the royal pain that I'm happy, and sometimes not so pleased, to call my friend Chang Wufei. Or one those unpleasant days when he manages to bristle all my scales in just the wrong direction, he could be Loose Change, Waffles, Fei-Bear, or any other degrading play on his name I can think of after my creative writing class. My eyes look across the table to where he usually sits and find a few ways to shoot fire at him with out twitching a muscle. Being around such smooth assholes like him has built me up quite the defense systems.

"How much longer do you think it's possible to live when I'm oh-so-close to asphyxiating you with your own damn hair?" I reply shortly.

"Yours would do much better, don't you think Maxwell?"

Even I have to admit he's cornered me in my own snide remark. "Screw me with a drumstick, why don't you?" I say sullenly and peer back down the black-ink lines of my book. "Besides, that's just my genius, and you wouldn't recognize any of that if it managed to poke you in the eye and blind you."

"I'm afraid you've already been blinded. It must be hard to breathe inside that cloud of ego," he says quietly, observing the school courtyard regally, smugly with those dark eyes of his. It begins a lovely little dance, spewed across the table in a fashion only brothers could spew it.

"Don't you have some candy to steal from little children?"

"Don't you have some satanic god you've neglected to sacrifice a chicken to lately?"

"Maybe you should go tighten your ponytail. You're not quite bitchy enough, Wufei."

With his tightly restrained black hair, there's a certain severity to the face of my friend Chang Wufei, and in the same sense a very precise, very Chinese beauty in his strong idealism and forceful, determined and righteous temperament. Of course, I would have never actually have said that to him.

You see, he's also a very—Well, my best friend Wufei is very straight man with an unavoidable and quiet obvious fondness for women, and I would hate to have some sort of awkward tension between me and my drummer if I had said that he was beautiful in anyway. Don't get me wrong, he's perfectly aware of my fancy for the home team, and more than once he's told me in his grunting, masculine way that it was fine with him, however I was. See? So sweet when he wants to be. The problem is that he just never wants to be. He's very good looking and actually a nice guy beneath all that fire—that's what makes him such a talented percussionist in my opinion, anyway—but it's a lot to handle at times.

But you'll never know Duo Maxwell to back down from a challenge if he can help it.

Oh yeah, that's me. How rude of me not to have introduced myself. I may run, and I may hide, but I never wear brown shoes with a blue suit. Or lie. That too.

After I fantasize about men in my cereal bowl and pajamas, I go to my high school like just about every other young person in this country and I loathe the homework that gets lopped on top of me and the pop-quizzes of the mathematical variety that are sprung mercilessly on me, but other than that I have another life. A secretive, wonderful life beyond what the textbooks can teach me, beyond what words are exchanged beside lockers about this it-couple, and that it-couple. No, I'm not a Japanese schoolgirl with a magical beast, an enchanted destiny, chasing villains on my rollerblades with a wise-talking cat... _thing_ on my shoulder and my cute little skirt flying up in the air. I don't live a double life fighting crime, and I definitely don't transform or wear frills or any of that.

I'm a fucking rock star, baby.

What, don't believe me? Well, I'm sure we will be once we can get my stereo literally kicked back into shape and finally record a scratchy demo and get out of my garage, but you'd better believe it's true. Otherwise, I might not recognize you when I'm doused with so much limelight. I suppose that a band name also would help me take that step up to fame and fortune, but I'm not gonna sweat the little things yet. It's all about getting heard at this stage of the game. With my hand-me-down Rickenbacker, I have plans to stir up this town and stir me up a way out of this place, with my two best friends at my side.

I don't wear plaid and marry infamously skanky untouchables named Courtney, I don't bid you welcome to the jungle, piss off my bandmates and promptly pass out, and I don't play upside down and backwards and light my guitar aflame, but I have a damned good time and make the best music I can. Really, that's all the image I want. All I could handle.

From somewhere amongst the fray and dance of the cliques and tightknit circles of friends, between the interlocked arms of the sweet couples and the ones only in for the daily raunchiness they find in each other, emerges that other aforementioned friend. Now, you would think that I would have my share of the cynical, almost stony teenagers as friends, but naw, I thought I would reel in one more with Trowa Barton. The most silent of the silent, the regally restrained, and incredibly fast-fingered guitarist of my street punk trio, and a steady rock. Perhaps I'm masochistic to have such taciturn and stormy friends constantly at my side, but they are possibly the most loyal human beings I've met so far, and I refuse to let them go. With his front-combed mohawk hair blocking most of his view, he sits down with a tray and without a word starts sharing his food with us. From where we come from, none of us can really afford too much of the expensive lunches they serve at our school, so we convene on a single lunch tray, usually.

I wink playfully and thank Trowa and he grunts and returns it with a nod. He's sweet too, though I wouldn't admit it either. They're both so much like the brothers I missed in my growing up in a lonesome household, and I would never let any harm come to them while I'm still alive, not if I could help it. They're the only people I have, and there's no measure to what I would do for their sakes.

Yes, I think, balancing a French fry on my lip and gazing up into the sky, one day we'll ride music out of this town and onto better things than living at our teacher's commands and in the shadow of the yuppies uptown.

"Hey, Towa-towa," I venture slyly out loud using my most ridiculous handle for him, catching my taciturn guitarist's smoldering attention. I grin and get out, "Catch!" before flinging a French fry at his face. As always—I swear his nerves must work on gamma rays or something, it's always flawless—he whips his hand up in a blur and catches it, a few inches from his face, and exasperatedly tosses it back at my face. I catch it in my mouth and chew happily, turning to give Wufei a complacent expression before he has the chance to sigh wearily and stare down at his lunch.

I know he loves me—what a sweetie pie—makes you want to pinch his cheeks. Chh.

We're a bunch, I'll tell you.


	2. Le Roman Dans La Destruction

**[****_It Takes the Bravest to Become Fools_****.]**

**Billiard Brats**

By Kaitsurinu

Chapter 2 – Le Roman Dans La Destruction

Think back—Remember when I said we'd all step easy down the road to fame and fortune, I meant it. Because with our car steaming like a disgruntled chain-smoker and battered horribly beneath this unsympathetic sun, there's no way to drive there. Like the phantasms of some poor roadkill victims, my rock and roll brothers and I are lost in the barren desert of the highway shoulder on the outskirts of nothingness. Oh, it's a grade-A day. One beautiful fucking-a of a day.

What a way to kick off your long-awaited weekend, I'm thinking so pleasantly while I sit patiently on the rim of the back on our dapper little fire engine red Toyota pickup. The T' and the ota' have long since been lost to whatever steals socks from the dryer and it happily flashes a dumb looking oy' when we're actually on the road. Jagged black spraypaint and my handiwork filled it in to read Boyo' in some pathetic, alcohol-fueled attempt of mine to spruce up an automotive that even the Fabulous Five Mechanics couldn't look out without gagging, let alone begin to fix.

The Unfixable Hulk. Rosemary's Baby in steel and motor oil. There's other assorted names for the heap of junk that escorts me to school and back, to the bar, and into trouble, but for a second, I'm distracted by the sound of the hood slamming shut almost violently and I lean forward to see Wufei finally giving up on the steaming and hissing engine. With an unhappy sound and a very contorted face in desperate need for some soothing herbal tea and perhaps even a few Midol, he pounds a fist on the side of his thigh in his sign of surrender. Trowa is standing quietly at his side, looking down at the hood as if he could still see the overworked innards of Boyo, but the expression on his face announces to me that he has no idea what to do with this rolling junk on wheels either.

Coming from the streets as we have, we all have a grasp on the beauty mechanical workings [some a little more than others] from our long summer days with little to do but tinker and get grease beneath our fingernails, but we're not stupid. We all know that this wreck is long past due for it's appointment with that thing that mashes a car into the size of a pair of dice. Whatever that's called. The Dice-Machine.

The problem is that in our I'll just say _nonattendance_ of money, we can't afford to fix whatever happens to this car. It's been a mutual rule in our house that we would pull the plug on our ramshackle little truck if it went past the point of no return, with the exception of shot brakes. If we could scrap up the money and there was nothing else seriously wrong, Boyo could set his own brakes on fire and we'd still reluctantly take him back. Otherwise it's decided we have to let him go if he requires a trip to the car doc. However, there's nothing in the rulebook that says we can't try to resuscitate him manually, but even a mechanic like me knows when to give up the ghost.

And when you see our car, you should have left that ghost miles behind you already. Live, and let die.

The second problem to be added to my plentiful list would be that our engine has overheated on a country highway, in a valley, with a very steep hill to either side of us, and one heartless sun shining light on the whole predicament. The day at school hadn't exactly hummed along either, but it hadn't broken down hissing steam and basically passed out on me when I was home free. I had a sinking feeling that I was just going to slowly explode if I tried to do anything with Boyo's engine, so I had retired to seating myself on the back and letting the sun burn my scrawny arms. Wufei, in his dependable stubbornness, tried to figure out ways to cool it down so we could all get home for a sorely needed practice.

During the last few weeks our minds had been racked with the horrors of midterms, and our musical instruments had grappled with a layer of dust in the basement while we gnawed our collective brains for mystical guidance to fill in the right little circle. Band agenda had been momentarily swept to the side. In the meanwhile, we were losing precious buzz that would keep us afloat on the bar circuit. Well, not really, but you can understand where I'm coming from. I don't want to loose whatever we worked so hard for during the last few years, elbowing our way into smoky bar billboards and taking any chance to play as long as there was at least a functioning electrical socket, because I said, "Only fools rush in," or some sentimentally lazy shit like that.

Eventually, I tire of simply soaking up cancer and lift my hand up to my eyes to shield my eyes, my shades conveniently forgotten in my locker beneath a year's worth of build-up of miscellaneous and God-knows-what. Over the hissing noise of the engine settling down and that searing noise that often comes from the summer sun, I finally hear the point where Wufei gives up on the engine. His hand slaps down the hood and he sighs loudly.

"It's done. There's nothing we can do with what we have with us to repair it, so we have no choice."

Acidly, I respond with my own sigh and look sideways towards the engine while I rhythmically swing my legs back and forth in front of me, hitting the tire with my heel.

"I say that we scrap him and find ourselves another mode of transportation. He's gotten too old, anyway. With the way we can take care of him, I'm surprised that he didn't explode or something just to pay us back for all that ill care."

"It doesn't have a gender, Duo," Wufei says uniformly. "And when did you beginning using the word, ill'?"

It's times like these that sometimes make me question why I had the _ill_ luck to be bunched in the company of a notorious nitpicker like Wufei—he has this knack for simply commenting on something but doing it in just the right way to ruffle me, making me feel like I'm being dissected by him for his judgement. I would blame his _ill_ moods from being around me too much, and finally becoming smart to my joking around, but I wouldn't waste the time apologizing, so why bother? It's just as well, anyway. It's only on bad days like this that his comments can get to me.

Tossing my braided hair over my shoulder, I cross my legs at the ankle and let them dangle over the edge of the truck. "I once met a Wiseman, and he said, Bite me, Wufei.'"

I know he's about ready to regret the remark, but he only wishes that he could hurt me. There's integrity in there that I have to thank for saving my skin on more than one occasion. Trowa helps with that integrity. Just having him around is sort of like a guardian angel in an older brother. Whenever Wufei's level annoyance outweighs his patience, Trowa heaps that stoic silence on top of him—with such strong arguments as "Hmmm" and "Hey, Wufei"—and he manages to calm him down. Speaking of my brother-in-arms, he's walking over to me—correction, past me—to the bumper.

I semi-squint at him while the sun glares me in the face as I turn to follow his movements. "Hmm? Trowa? What'cha doing?"

His hand catches my sleeve as he goes by, walking so quietly that I swear he's getting his daily orders from a junky CB radio named Bosley. I partially learned how to slink about as silently as I can from Trowa, while the other half I was naturally endowed with. I swear, sometimes at night, it feels like he's invaded my house and is about to sneak up on me with a wire and rub me out of the picture. Of course, I know him better than that, and I've also combed through his room looking for that wire, just in case.

Where was I going with this voice-over? Oh yeah.

There's enough pressure on my arm to drag my feet to the pavement, while Trowa stands patiently at attention at the back bumper. "Don't just sit there," he grunts finally, while I stand there, watching him watch me and Wufei has the time to move up beside me and then elbow me in the ribs in that very un-fun, very I've-got-no-time-for-this-triviality-Maxwell-I've-got-meditation-to-finish-up-so-I-can-be-even-more-enlightened-than-I-already-am-more-than-you way he does things. Well, the way he does today.

"He's right," the Chinese brother adds curtly, as he swings around back and puts a hand on the rim of the truck, "don't just gawk. We're not going to get anywhere if we don't do something, and standing there doesn't help, either, Duo. Start pushing."

That's when my petite Boyo started to look most like a wallowing, death-bloated rhinoceros carcass that he had in his immeasurable lifetime.

"Oh, fuck no."

"There's no other way," Trowa consoles flatly. "Unless you'd rather not get home at all."

"Yes. I'd like to sleep inside a house, if it doesn't disagree with you, Maxwell."

"Hey man, you're _much_ stronger than flimsy ol' me. Both of you are. Why ask me?" I slur in a blustery return and tossing my palms helplessly into the air. It's slowly becoming all hot air the more I argue with these guys, and I'll be damned if they're not picking up on it like bloodhounds to a milkbone.

I hate this weekend already.

"And besides, you've been the one pressing us to practice. You should help." Trowa's voice sometimes sounds like a meat-grinder. A meat grinder that can either mash up the mad mood and bring us all back to a place where we don't want to strangle each other, or just be on Wufei's side. Narc.

"Okay, but whatever happened to that American institution known as a towing truck? Yeah, what happened to those? Oh, I dunno, maybe they've relocated to Uranus without telling me. Trowa, did you check the messages lately? I was sure the last time I checked most people don't go around pushing cars up massive hills, or putting on saddles and giving out people-back rides to horses, for that matter. But fuck, I could be wrong—"

"Shut up and push," Wufei orders, ever so sweetly.

Both Trowa and Wufei lunged at me at the same moment and each grabbed another extension of me—one my hair and the other the wrist I injured trying to wrench myself away from the last time someone had put a very honking unwelcome hand on my coif. And they both pulled me toward manual labor.

Who's got the bathtub and razors? Anybody?

If you would just travel back to a time in ancient Greece with me, back when Echo and Pan still danced their endless waltz of calling out a lover's name in hide-and-seek, back when Gods would marry tempestuous sisters and take them as even more tempestuous wives, back when heroes were heroes and women were thought to be deceitful, tempting, and utterly beautiful and adulterous--that's where you can start to search for me now. No, leave that Oracle in Delphi alone and quit asking for your astrology prediction for the day, and come with me. Somewhere secluded, you'll need to push aside a boulder and pull your ass down some dank hellhole and find yourself at Hades' gate.

Then feed the giant three-headed dog, and run along.

They're not currently selling any kind of road map in Hell's giftshop, and I wouldn't recommend stopping and asking the spirits for directions; they may be in a bad mood, but only because they've just died. Move yourself to the deepest, darkest, most miserable bottomless pit in the darkest corner of Hades called Tartarus, kick off your shoes if you're wearing your nice pair, and resign yourself to jumping into it. If you make it to the bottom without having the misfortune of spearing yourself on something, travel down the path for a thousand passes, take a left once you reach Tantalus's lake and go another thousand paces straight ahead.

That's where you'll happen to find Trowa Barton, Chang Wufei, and myself pushing a boulder in the shape of a red Toyota named Boyo endlessly up a hill.

School had been released at 2:45, and after only an hour our truck had heaved and kicked the bucket, leaving us stranded in the bottom of a wide valley with hills at all sides. Now that it was growing dark and I couldn't see the display of my watch in the dusky light, at least we were spared from the agony of the sun. It had to be roughly five o'clock and evening had inevitably settled in over us. At the present, I was sitting tiredly in the cockpit of the junkmobile, waiting to put on the parking brake as soon as I heard on of my brothers either keen out in effort or bark at me—I wasn't really too anxious to hear Wufei begin chewing me out again after the time I'd been too busy blankly staring into space, dreaming up a set list, to put on the break. He'd nearly pulled a muscle in his arm, but luckily he said that as long as he could imagine my face on the skin of the drums, could still play them.

Chewing idly on some old lime green gum {just don't ask where I got it, since none of us had a pack on us} I was sprawled out like a cat. I'd kicked off my boots and crossed my ankles as they rested over the steering wheel. Fingers criss-crossed behind my head. While I chewed obnoxiously to myself, I stared blankly out the windshield at the rapidly darkening skies. Nearly a mile ahead of us, our goal sat very complacently and sneered at us, inching forward in agony as we tried to reach the top of the hill.

We had decided that we'd driven too far off into the countryside to consider walking—but really we didn't want to leave our car if it could be helped. You never know who would come along and put the wretched thing out of its misery. Trowa had insisted that he'd seen some large yuppyish homes once on the other side, and without the money for a cellphone and not a trace of a living soul for the last hour and a half, we had pushed tirelessly forward. Correction: Wufei and Trowa had pushed, and it definitely wasn't tirelessly. I had pushed myself, but about fifteen minutes into it, it became clear that I just didn't have the upper-body strength to compete with my brothers or do any noticeable work. So I was appointed to parking-brake duty.

I, myself, sadly have to admit that I have nary a beefy bone in my body. {Gee, that doesn't sound good out loud, does it?} First of all, I'd like to see a situation where I'd have to have strength to save my life where I couldn't have saved it in the first place by simply hauling my ass out of there. I emphasize flight over fight, when it comes down to it. Growing up ragamuffin will instill those kinds of ideas in your head, especially when you're beat down by someone three times your size just because you were too stupid to run. And also, by growing up as a ragamuffin, an urchin—an orphan basically—wandering the streets, it didn't exactly give me an overly muscular build. Yes, magnificent ole me can barely tip the scales at an even hundred and two pounds, even on a nice, plump day.

Well, being girlishly small has its perks—I never gain an ounce and I can walk softly enough to sneak up on Jesus if the whim ever took my fancy.

As I'm pondering my luck, being so spindly, and gazing off into the glowing display painted on the horizon, I hear a sudden, gruff snap from the rear of the truck that I can barely make out as some very indignant Chinese profanities—I must have completely dazed off again. Before I can start wondering how long he's been yelling and get the temptation to pretend I didn't hear him, I stretch down to the side and punch the parking brake in with my hand since my legs are still slung up over the steering wheel. The car's weight depresses against the ground again, holding fast.

At the same instant, Trowa and Wufei both drop their arms from the bumper, each with an edge to their breathing as they straighten up. My guitarist is the quietest about his strains from pushing the truck at the agonizing pace we had been going at, and he only silently sweats and brushes it off with the back of his hand. However, I've recently learned that my drummer becomes very fluent in his childhood language when he's been pushing two tons up a hill. In the dimness I see Wufei walk up to the rolled down window on the driver side and peers in at me, trying to slow his breathing and muttering beneath that ragged rhythm.

I can see a faint sheen of sweat on him glistening in the murky purple tint. For sympathy, I smile at him and automatically hand him a half-emptied, lukewarm bottle of water that had been sitting in the backseat. "There. I think the hard-working man deserves a little something to tide him over," I explain, with a wink as a flourish. "But save some for the rest of the trip. Hey, and how about a little for Trowa, huh?"

Suddenly, my other brother is standing beside Wufei—goddamnit, how does he do that? It still freaks me out, even though I've been living with them for the last three years. "No, go ahead, Wufei. I'll be fine," he grunts, as I notice a bead of sweat drip ever-so-elegantly off his Mohawk.

Who does this bozo think he's fooling? "The hell you will be," I say quickly, taking the bottle back from Wufei, who had been busy trying to gauge how much water was in it in the dimness, and shove it in Trowa's face and force him to take it. "Just drink some, alright? The last thing we need right now is for one of you to black out or something. How fun would that be? I'll be the one peeling you off the cold pavement, you know why? Because the other one will lose his arms and I'll have no choice but to drag you along. That'll be a freaking _hoot_."

He eyes me from behind a heavily slicked lock of hair, then relents and takes a nice, reasonable swig out of it. Sometimes it takes a little rambling and obnoxious tone to get the work done in our household. Meanwhile, the percussionist had leaned himself against the doorframe and let out a heaving, tiring sigh while he brushed the stray strands of black hair back with a hand. He hadn't bothered recollecting his hair, and a good third of it was now stringing around his face. Rarely did he ever unbind it, or even spend time with it down.

"Are you still too much of a weakling to help us?"

Slinging my elbow out the window, I give Wufei's shoulder a brotherly sock. "Sorry, Jimbo. I might break a nail, and I've gotta go to the prince's ball." He gives me a peculiar look for the unexpected nickname, but he ignores it as dutifully as I've grown to depend on him to do. [Luckily, he also ignores that I had implied that he and Trowa were the ugly stepsisters.]

Silently, the water bottle is passed between them and Wufei takes a drink of nourishment as well. I've got my own substinance to live off. I think there's some week old candy bars lodged beneath the seats that I could scrounge up if need be. The thought of needing more food only meant I'd be stranded out here longer.

"I really hope that we don't have to spend the night out here, or something majority fucked up like that," I mutter as I fold my arms on the windowsill and rest my chin on my wrist. There's even a breezy sigh somewhere within me. "What a beautiful way to find relaxation," I sneer sarcastically.

"Take off the parking brake," Trowa says quietly. "We'll start pushing again."

"What, already? You two are out of your minds! Take a freaking break!"

Wufei absently tosses the water bottle back to me with a flick of his wrist as he and Trowa both stalk back to the back bumper to begin the torture again. "We just did."

"Fine," I sigh out the window, lifting a hapless palm to the sky. "I'm not busting my ass, so why should I care? It's only a little brotherly concern, but hell, what's the use in arguing—?" I shrug tiredly and wonder why I ever have the nerve to think of arguing those two out of something while I punch the parking brake again, allowing Boyo to roll idly back a few millimeters before the straining pair both once again commence the dismal shoving.

"Headstrong bastards."

We wither away for another tormenting forty minutes in similar fashion, and we gain a little ground, and the incline begins to become steeper as reward. Every fifteen minutes or so, the endless wells of stubbornness that are my bandmates trying to shove a dreary rusty-red pickup up some fucking hill tire, and they come to my window for a break. Sometimes I would promise to buy them new equipment, and I'd get a curt little growl from Wufei announcing we needed that money to eat and pay the electricity, in order to practice. I told him that was the last time I'd offer him a present and sweetly told him off with a single gesture. I talked with Trowa about how we'd ditch school for the next week in blatant Ferris Bueller style and find him a quaint little parade float for him to dance on. Yeah. No go there, either.

So now, what the fuck can I do? Nada, pero stare at the growing darkness outside.

Just before I notice the light gleaming in the rear view mirror, I wonder if I could close my eye and get away with another dream while my comrades broke their arms futilely struggling against mass and gravity. Then when I do, I automatically pull my ankles off the steering wheel and they land squarely on the floor, allowing me to peer curiously at the mirror. Mirage, that's what. I've gone so long in this hellish desert that I've started seeing golden Taj Mahals and undulating male harems in my desperation mocking me in the rear view.

Squinting, rubbing my eyes, and peering again, however, makes it very clear that this is not a miraculous dream, but just a plain fucking miracle. I look over my shoulder and out lean out the window, and I can't help but smile when I see that it indeed is a headlight, coming our way.

Faster than lightning, I stomp viciously on the parking brake and lunge out my door, nearly skittering to the pavement in my enthusiasm. As soon as I punch the brake, Boyo rocks into an impossible stalemate and makes both of my brothers grunt out in surprise as they fall to the ground from pushing so hard and suddenly having no give, rather than the scant ounce of give they had before. However, I'm just too fucking ecstatic to notice and I go sprinting by them, ignoring the fiery and stony looks I receive respectively.

"What the hell, Maxwell?" Wufei grumbles out, sorely rubbing the side of his face where it'd struck pavement. It's more of a demand than any kind of patient question, but Trowa, who can amazingly even see with that wild ginger-colored hair blocking his view like some deformed statue from straight from Beetlejuice, spots the speak of light nearing us with a engine roaring off in the distance.

"Somebody's coming," he says blankly.

"Somebody with a car, that's what!" I crow happily, flashing my most excited shit-eating grin toward the both of them over my shoulder. This is better than a bowl of warm slop and a Death Row pardon. "Fucking hallelujah and amen. They've probably got a cell phone we can use. Or better yet, a loving heart and room in their backseat to give us a ride home. Either way, we're off this fucking hook!"

One of Wufei's dark brows furrows in the light of all there is to celebrate, while he stares into the approaching light. "Maxwell?"

"That's not a car, Duo," Trowa says as he stalks quietly up beside me, massaging the muscle just above his elbow absently with a hand. "There's only one headlight."

As soon as he makes this awfully disheartening comment, the purring roar that had filled the air grew undeniably into the thunder of a motorcycle, and the headlight began drawing close enough to paint our faces a bone-pale shade of deathly white. "So it is," I murmur aimlessly to myself. I'm somehow drawn to the jagged stare of light that the single headlight emits, like a mindless stag caught in the glare. The motorcyclist notices an obstacle blocking the lane {namely the broken down carcass affectionately dubbed Boyo} and it swerves smoothly into the opposing lane to speed on by.

"Hn," Trowa grunts. "Seems he's in a hurry to get home as well."

"Fuck that. He's going to help his unfortunate fellow motorists, or so help me God, I'll whip out the chickens and voodoo priestesses and get him back the hard way."

I roll up my sleeves until they show white and determinedly press on past my leery comrades and walk out into the far lane. Otherwise known as the suicide lane. I can tell from the disregarding little snort from my Chinese brother and the monotone-gravel warning of "_Duo,_" from the Mohawk brother that they've already guessed the masterminding plan I've concocted to make sure the motorist stops and gives us the helping hand we've been silently aching for. I'm not known for my untruthful boasts, and hell, I will do whatever it takes to secure a way home before dark. Even if that may or may not entail jumping in front of a speeding motorcycle or two.

I'll give you a hint: it's not the latter of the two.

Like a model finding her natural place at the end of the runway, I plant my feet, but I do not have any plan of turning around and sashaying my cute little tush backstage in this situation. And neither am I wearing silken lingerie and flaunting faux angel wings.

Slowly the motorcyclist's headlight grows steadily larger and larger. First the size of a sweet pea, then swelling to marble size, and finally becoming a neat, round silver dollar that I felt I could have reached out and held in my palm. That reminds me. Perhaps I should stick out my hand, declare "Stop in the name of love and busted radiators"? The thundering, defiant purr of the motor roars steadily, and doesn't seem to be noticing me in the middle of the lane, or he likes feeling of raw meat between his wheels. Or he's feeling feisty tonight. Any of those will get me killed.

I swear I even hear the engine rev once or twice.

"_Duo_," Trowa intones again, more urgently this time. Almost sounds like concern to an untrained ear.

"I don't think he's going to stop, either, Maxwell."

"Well, looks like he's going to have to stop or your going to have to pry me off this pavement with a spatula, because I'm not moving," I respond brazenly, smiling wickedly into the approaching light, this train about to roar down on me. I happily disguise that I've considered that fact, thank you_ very _much, 24-Hour Chang Buffet_,_ and I'm ready at any moment to scatter like a cockroach if I really get spooked. Making a nervous swallow, I settle into my feet uneasily, as the light grows bigger and bigger and my chances of survival and my rationale-levels drop and drop. Maybe I'm being dramatic, but how many _living_ raccoons do _you_ see lying on the side of the road?

"He's not stopping, Duo."

"I'm 20/20, Trowa! I think I can see that."

"Then you know he's going to hit you if you stand there."

"Well, thanks Captain Obvious. Thanks for pointing that out."

Wufei only shrugs and sits quaintly on the rim of Boyo's trunk. "We have no choice but to start looking for another lead singer tomorrow, then."

"Yeah, I love you too, asshole!"

One day, I think, I'll look back on all of this and realize that it was never a good decision. Yeah, I'll flip through the aging photo album of my mind with the fingers I have left and scratch at the full body cast and realize those laws of nature like velocity and gravity that my science professors often rambled on about at length were not things conjured up just to make sure that I failed my test or looked both ways when crossing a street. Yes, I may not be a brainy prodigy, but I can still do some simple math.

**Harley**-**Davidson** x **Acceleration** **Pedal** = _Old-Fashioned Mashed Duo and Gravy_

Or was it just _I'm fucking dead_?

Whatever the equation comes out to, there's very little time for me to mull it around in my brain, wondering if I've done the right thing. It's definitely not a smart thing, that's for sure. By now, we've seemed to have passed the point of no return, and aside from the now deafening roar of the motorcycle coming down on me I can hear both of my brothers swearing or growling at me to get the hell out of the way, but that's the thing about me. If I moved now, I'd be a liar. And as much as I'd like to say I'm just that virtuous and courageous to stand behind my word till Death comes to harvest me, I just know that I'd never be able to boast my honesty without either Trowa or Wufei saying smugly, "But there was that time with the motorcycle"

And I'd hate that even more.

There's a growing, roaring purr as loud as the world splitting apart assaulting my ears, and an indescribable blur moving straight at me. And that light—I feel like I'm being slowly blinded or being thrown at the white light at the end of the tunnel. Instantly, the pit of my stomach drops out and I feel like I'm falling along with it. All rationale that hadn't disappeared before is now gone, replaced instead by raw, buckling instinct telling me to bolt desperately to one side or the other. I'm too scared to do either. Beyond the glaring light there's a shimmer of blue off the biker's helmet and I think I see a bit of the stranger's face just before I know he's going to hit me.

Brakes scream obscenities at me all of a sudden and neat little trails of smoke rise off of the wheels as it comes barreling to a stop. Despite the unexpected braking, I have a terrified instinct to put my hands out, just in case I suddenly have the strength to stop hundreds of pounds flying at me. Just in case. My hands land on the handlebars and I feel a surge of force buckle through me as the motorcycle wheel comes to a halt between my legs, inches from burning rubber on my crotch. I'm leaning over the headlight and panting, looking up at the stranger. I sigh. Wufei and Trowa let out their breaths collectively.

Damn it, it's good not to die as roadkill.

With a nervous laugh that's hard to manage since I'm shuddering like a leaf, I make my best apologetic expression toward the stranger and smile, starting to say, "Heh-heh, that was some close call, huh—?"

Then I almost swear I see something like a smirk through that blue tinted helmet.

The engine revs again, that purr spiking suddenly into a grumbling roar, and I feel the force of the wheel jumping an inch forward knock me back and sharply knock the air out of my lungs and sharply knock all the non-pain out of my groin.

"What the hell—?!" I gasp out painfully, just a second before I fall back onto the pavement. Before I get the opportunity to regroup my boys and slither back up off the ground to give that licensed asshole the angriest rampage he's ever had the misfortune to experience, the engine roars again, like it's laughing at me. No doubt the biker is; I can practically feel the low rumbling laugher stomping over my pride over the sound of the engine. The motorcycle momentarily purrs backwards, the light pulling away, I see, as I lift my head off the blacktop and squint, then it thunders on by. Goes on by as merrily as a girl in a spring dress prancing along a briar patch. Leaves me, with only the pain in my crotch and the starry sky directly over me as a souvenir. And that leaves me pretty damn unsatisfied.

Only seconds later, my brothers stroll up around my sprawled form. Their hands are smugly balled in their pockets and they gaze down upon me with the most complacent little looks. Wufei even adds a little more high-horse to the whole affair by arching just one of his eyebrows at me, but it's Trowa who initiates the ridicule fest.

"You didn't stop him." His voice is the poster child for Subtle, but I can just tell he's dying to rub whatever of this he can neatly in to my face.

"No, I suppose that I did not," I snarl, glaring over at the pavement.

"Comfortable?"

"If you mean comfortable by ready to chew off your face, bite by bite, Whoop-de-do then yes, I'm snug as a bug."

Wufei only snorts in an infuriating laugh, and the noise of the motorcycle thundering off carelessly into the sunset makes the backdrop that much worse.

I'm gonna smite that damned guy. _Smite_ him.


End file.
